


When All Grows Dark

by theplotbunny



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Gen, I will fight you on it, Implied Relationships, Sam is totally a hypocrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 12:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9549110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theplotbunny/pseuds/theplotbunny
Summary: Benny Lafitte wasn't sure where “home” was anymore.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [likethedirection](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethedirection/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, dear friend!

Benny Lafitte wasn't sure where “home” was anymore.

Once, a long time ago, it was an old clapboard house in Louisiana. Family, community, a real life - all of that was gone now. He couldn’t reclaim it, even though he’d tried. 

After that, it’d been a series of boats and islands. A blur that he recognized now as trying to reclaim that community in a way that had been twisted and tainted by the bite, by being no longer human. He’d willingly sent that one up in flames. Twice. Once figuratively, the second more literally.

Then Andrea had been home, until she had been torn away, too, and Benny had spent a lot of time in Purgatory - when he wasn’t desperately defending himself - wondering if home and family and community were only for humans and if monsters could ever manage it at all.

And now, he was spending most of his time in a car. A car and a series of questionable motels.

Really, this part of his life had started in possibly the most questionable motel. It was what Dean would have called a “total dump.” Or maybe a “rat-infested hole.” At the time, Benny hadn’t had the strength to make the snarky quips he was now used to. It didn’t matter what it looked - or smelled or sounded - like. He hadn’t been planning on staying long. He just couldn’t be in that truck any longer, couldn’t be out there any more. 

He’d been stuck at sea in a storm once. Every time the boat leaned a bit too far, he’d lost his feet, even as used to the roll of the ocean as he was. Every time they’d gone over a massive swell, his stomach had risen and dropped out with it and they’d all wondered if vampires could vomit. 

He’d felt the same way that night even with his feet on dry land. 

His phone had been in his hands as he sat on the end of the bed and as much as he’d wanted to call Dean, to get his bearings again in this place that he didn’t recognize anymore, he knew he couldn’t. He didn’t want to hear the same words again, that goodbye that was just too much in a whole pile of things he couldn’t deal with. 

At one point, Benny had tried to bring some normalcy back into life. Normal mealtimes, reasonable sleeping hours, that sort of human thing. It hadn’t worked, and getting ready for bed and trying to sleep hadn’t worked that night either. That’s why he knew it was 2:48am when a knock sounded at his door.

The footsteps on the sidewalk outside had been clear as a bell, but Benny had assumed they would pass. It was easy to get to the door without a human outside hearing any movement, but when he looked through the peephole, he wondered if he’d gotten out of bed at all and was just dreaming this. 

When he opened the door, Dean was still standing there, shoulders hunched a bit and hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets. Benny stepped back and Dean stepped over the threshold.

Neither of them said a thing at first. Dean looked around the room and Benny looked at Dean. He looked tired, eyes a bit red. Benny had no idea why he was there after how their last call had gone. 

Benny found he didn’t care about the why too much right now. 

Eventually Dean broke the silence. “You still want company?” That seemed like a grand misstatement of the begging that Benny had partaken in earlier. Begging that had been rejected.

But Dean was there. Dean had changed his mind.

Benny hadn’t felt this important to someone since-- He couldn’t actually remember.

“Yeah. I could use some company.” Always could. 

Dean nodded and chewed on his lower lip a bit. “... Benny…”

Benny didn’t want to hear it. Not yet. Not with Dean’s eyes looking like that.

“You look like shit,” Benny said abruptly, breaking through the chirping song of the cricket that was living somewhere in the bathroom. Dean looked at him properly for the first time that night, eyes wide, pupils huge in the low light. “We can talk in the morning.”

Another silence, but Dean’s shoulders lifted a bit and Benny could practically feel him relax a bit. And suddenly, Benny felt as tired as Dean looked.

He locked the door again and crawled back into bed, Dean following a moment later. Benny was almost asleep when he remembered something from Purgatory that he definitely needed to address before he lost Dean to his dreams. 

“... You gonna complain tomorrow about sleeping in your jeans?”

A rustle of fabric that almost stole Benny’s half of the blankets, then the sound of denim hitting the floor. Dean rolled over onto his stomach, words muffled by the pillow, “Happy now?”

No one saw it, but Benny smiled for the first time in days. “Yup.”

Since then, it’d been Benny, Dean, the Impala, and the road. Over time, Benny had gotten bits and pieces out of Dean at a time about what happened after that phone call. Sam and his attitude that Dean refused to let Benny call hypocrisy. Sam and the fight that Benny knew Dean was leaving out parts of. Benny got a bit of history, too. Like Sam and Madison, Sam and Ruby, Sam and Lenore and thus Benny’s one-time attempted accusation of hypocrisy. 

Dean looked less tired the more they moved, the more they talked, the more they worked. They were a good team, moving from place to place, saving people, hunting things.

Benny found he fit pretty comfortably into the Impala’s passenger seat. He also found he liked AC/DC and Metallica, and that Africa wasn’t just a continent across the Atlantic. 

Benny wasn't sure what it said about him as a person (or maybe as a vampire) that so many of his most significant relationships involved so much travel. He found that he was more comfortable when he was on the move. As nice as settling down in one place seemed, he felt better on the road, never staying in one place for too long. Maybe that desire was linked to his life as a human, but Benny would never know for sure. After all, there were so many humans who felt the need to pack up and go, too. People like Dean.

He looked over at the other man asleep in the passenger seat, neck still angled uncomfortably even after Benny had carefully slid a crappy travel pillow under his head for support. Dean felt that same need to be in motion, Benny knew. But he had a feeling that it was different in one very important way: where Benny's need was innate, he had a feeling that Dean's was ingrained. It could maybe be trained out of him with a lot of time and effort. Maybe.

Benny still didn't know all of the history there, the rather labyrinthine details of the Winchester family's past. He knew what he thought was the bare bones of what lead to this life for Dean and his brother. Maternal hunter lineage, maternal death, paternal dive into the deep end of the dark and deadly (in more ways than one). But there was so much more to learn. The reasons why Dean and Sam hadn't spoken in a long time were about much more than just Dean's attachment to Benny. That much was obvious, but Benny didn't know those reasons very well. He just knew that when Sam's name was mentioned, usually accidentally by Garth (or maybe not-so-accidentally, with how wily the man could be sometimes), Dean went quiet in a way that reminded Benny of certain moments back in Purgatory. Moments in which the only creature hurting Dean was Dean himself and Benny still couldn't do a damn thing about it other than silently stand by and make sure that Dean ate and slept and didn't run off into danger without back-up. 

Benny knew his dear friend carried the world on his shoulders. Benny even knew that he was part of that weight, but that he was only a pebble on that particular mountain. And he knew that Dean wouldn't let him carry any of it for him. Not even for a little while.

Not yet, anyway. 

The car ran over a set of rumble strips leading up to a stop sign. Dean awoke with a slight jerk and a sharp intake of breath as Benny slowed to a stop. 

“Where are we?” 

Benny glanced over to see him rubbing his eyes like he could dig the sleep out of them with enough force. “Almost to Kansas. 'Bout another half hour to the border, I think.” 

Dean nodded. Benny looked away, checked the nonexistent traffic, and pulled out into the intersection. 

“I thought we could stop and check into a motel a bit later. Get some food.” He didn't look over to see Dean's reaction, even though there was literally nothing to hit if he looked away from the road. He could feel Dean shift, could hear his heartbeat speed up a bit, but Benny didn't look. 

Just like life was easier for Dean on the road, so was talking. It was stopping and looking that was hard.

“Uh, yeah. That's a good plan.” It would be one more night before reaching the bunker. One more night in which Dean didn't have to face Sam, in which Benny could prepare for spending time around Sam. One more night for Sam to be brother- and vampire-free. One more night Dean wouldn't have to be a buffer, even if Benny would do his best to be as unobtrusive as possible. 

Garth and Kevin would still be there tomorrow. The problems wouldn't just magically go away. But for one more night, it would just be Benny and Dean on the road. 

For one more night, Benny could have Dean to himself. That was the one thing he missed about Purgatory. The purity Dean had mentioned once or twice had been in the focus. It was just him and Dean with one goal, one common enemy, us versus them. Up here, it was him and Dean and Dean's family and hunters and vampires. It was Heaven and Hell and demons and angels. It was complicated in a way that Benny's life before hadn't been.

It was complicated in a way that just might be uniquely Winchester in nature. 

Sometimes Benny genuinely couldn't tell who was friend or foe anymore. 

But tonight, he thought, glancing over just once to see Dean glaring out into the evening gloom, he wouldn't push. They'd have enough of that tomorrow.

So, Benny smirked and looked back at the road. “Don't tell me. You want a burger. Again.”

It took Dean a second to answer, but Benny could feel him look at Benny for a long moment before answering.“And what's wrong with a burger? Again.” 

Benny gave a long, put-upon sigh. “The man has the opportunity to try new foods, and all he wants is a burger.” He started listing off all the foods that he loved from a long time back, describing them in exquisite detail. All the things he would happily cook for Dean if Dean would ever let him. If they ever stayed put long enough in a place with a kitchen. 

He didn't have to finish his list. Dean knew where this was going and interrupted with a, “Yeah, yeah. 'And still the man just wants a burger.' I'm a simple man with simple wants, Benny, my man.” 

A simple man with simple wants. 

Benny glanced over and their eyes met for longer than was technically safe when driving a car at 75mph. Dean was smiling. “And you're never getting me to try that 'swamp rat' thing you told me about.”

Benny grinned back and returned his eyes to the road. “Oh, well, let me tell you about tripe...” 

For one more night, they could get back some of that purity. 

And maybe one night, however far in the future, Dean would let Benny cook for him, and Benny would finally know where home was now. Even if that home ended up being what he was already thinking it might be, moving along beside him in an old, black Impala.

**Author's Note:**

> "Home isn't where you're from. It's where you find light when all grows dark." Pierce Brown (from the book Golden Son)


End file.
